Higher Education Inquirer : 2024

Tuesday, May 14, 2024

College Meltdown 3.0 Could Start Earlier (And End Worse) Than Planned

Chronicling the College Meltdown

Since 2016, the Higher Education Inquirer has documented the College Meltdown as a series of demographic and business trends leading to lower enrollments and making higher education of decreasing value to working-class and middle-class folks. This despite the commonly-held belief that college is the only way to improve social mobility.

For more than a dozen years, the College Meltdown has been most visible at for-profit colleges and community colleges, but other non-elite schools and for-profit businesses have also been affected. Some regions, states, and counties have been harder hit than others. Non-elite state universities are becoming increasingly vulnerable.

Elite schools, on the other hand, do not need students for revenues, at least in the short run. They depend more on endowments, donations, real estate, government grants, corporate grants, and other sources of income. Elite schools also have more than enough demand for their product even after receiving bad press.

The perceived value and highly variable real value of higher education has made college less attractive to many working-class consumers and to an increasing number of middle-class consumers--who see it as a risky proposition. Degrees in the humanities and social sciences are becoming a tough sell. Even some STEM degrees may not be valuable for too long. Public opinion about higher education and the value of higher education has been waning and many degrees, especially graduate degrees, have a negative return on investment.

Tuition and room and board costs have skyrocketed. Online learning has become more prominent, despite persistent questions about its educational value.

While college degrees have worked for millions of graduates, student loans have mired millions of other former students, and their families, in long-term debt, doing work in fields they aren't happy with.

Elite degrees for people in the upper class still make sense though, as status symbols and social sorters. And there are some professions that require degrees for inclusion. But those degrees and the lucrative jobs accompanying them disproportionately go to foreigners and immigrants, and their children--a demographic wave that may draw the ire of folks who have lived in the US for generations and who may have not enjoyed the same opportunities.

Starting Sooner and Ending Worse

The latest phase of the College Meltdown was supposed to result from a declining number of high school graduates in 2025, something Nathan Grawe projected from lower birth rates following the 2008-2009 recession.

But problems with the federal government's financial aid system may mean that a significant decline in enrollment at non-elite schools starts this fall instead of 2025.

The College Meltdown may become even worse than planned, in terms of lower enrollment and declining revenues to non-elite schools. Enrollment numbers most assuredly will be worse than Department of Education projections of slow growth until 2030.

In 2023, we wrote about something few others reported on: that community colleges and state universities would feel more financial pressure from by the flip-side of the Baby Boom: the enormous costs of taking care of the elderly which could drain public coffers that subsidize higher education. This was a phenomenon that should also have been anticipated by higher education policy makers, but is still rarely discussed. Suzanne Mettler graphed this out in Degrees of Inequality a decade ago--and the Government Accountability Office noted the huge projected costs in 2002.

Monday, May 6, 2024

Wikipedia Community Documents Pro-Palestinian Protests on University and College Campuses

On April 22, 2024, the Wikipedia community began building an article titled 2024 pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses. The article includes a timeline on an estimated 120 campus protests and occupations that first started at Brown University in November 2023. On May 3, 2024, the list of pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses in 2024 was created.

As of May 6, more than 120 writers and editors have been involved in the Wikipedia project making more than 1100 edits. Editors are restricted to those who have shown a record of following with community rules. The article has received about 33,000 views so far. On May 3, the original article received a peak number of views, more than 10,000 for the day. The number of views of the second article, the list, continues to grow.

Events Preceding the Student Protests

Demonstrations which began in Europe and the US in October 2023 moved onto college campuses and expanded internationally.

The protests are in response to tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians being killed and a half million facing famine. The US media has generally avoided discussing the larger picture: of US, European, and Arab nations over the last seven decades, and their role in the forced migration and containment of Palestinians in what has been termed an "open air prison" in Gaza. US history includes similar elements of inhumanity and oppression.

In January 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) said it is "plausible" that Tel Aviv was committing genocide in Gaza, ordering Israel to stop such acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians. An order that Israel has rejected.

In March 2024, United Nations Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese said of the Israeli actions that “There are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of the crime of genocide…has been met.”

Outcomes During and After the Demonstrations

In an attempt to quell the university and college protests in the US, more than 2,700 people have been arrested, to include students and university professors. An unknown number of students have also been expelled with limited due process. Media have been restricted access to protest sites.

Despite the documented horrors in Gaza, the US public has generally not supported the protests. And the US government continues to send arms, and money for arms, to Israel. Pro-Palestinian protesters have been labeled as radicals and antisemitic, even though many of them are Jewish.

Student demands for divestment from Israel and from US arms makers have been discussed, but no material changes have occurred. Israel is planning to invade the city Rafah, which is likely to end in more deaths and suffering, but the US has mentioned no consequences if civilian body counts are high. Internationally, Israel is facing greater isolation, and its leaders are being accused of war crimes.

Time will tell whether these articles will be reflective of a short-lived situation or part a larger social movement. The 76-year genocide in Palestine, the unintended consequences of the Jewish genocide during the 1930s and 1940s, will not be going away.

For more than a century, student protests have been a part of US history and social consciousness, sometimes forgotten, but often reflecting progressive thinking (civil rights, peace, divestment from apartheid, fighting climate change).

Friday, April 12, 2024

Heritage Foundation's 2025 "Mandate for Leadership" Presents Trump Playbook for Privatizing US Education and Reducing Oversight

The Heritage Foundation's 2025 Mandate for Leadership details what the next Trump Administration has in store for US higher education. The Education section starts on page 319.

The Mandate was created by an army of writers and policy people, and it is approved by at least 100 conservative groups, including Liberty University and Turning Point USA.

The authors include former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows as senior partner; the Center for Renewing America led by former Trump-appointee Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought; and America First Legal, led by former Trump Senior Advisor Stephen Miller.

While one major goal is to eliminate the US Department of Education, there are many other privatization schemes in the works--shifting powers to the corporate world (and corporate greed) and providing minimal federal oversight.

These schemes would also reduce oversight of K-12 education, colleges, and student loans. Since the federal government funds a great deal of state-level bureaucracy, these measures would also reduce oversight at the state level.

It is possible many of these disruptive policies could be employed without Congressional approval.

This document is more than rhetoric. Republicans have been diligently planning on hiring 20,000 people to help carry these ideas out.

Even if only partially realized, the Mandate has consequences that could last for generations, further dividing the nation by race and class--and making the nation vulnerable to foreign adversaries.